You go girl hair extensions

Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton don’t have to wait to grow their hair for the ultimate in red carpet looks – and now nor do mere mortals who want a new look for Friday night.

Alice Goldsmith’s hair extension system is already used by 20 salons in South East Queensland.

Last weekend the 33-year-old Sunshine Coast mum made the trip to Sydney, setting up a stand at Hair Expo to tell the rest of Australia’s hairdressing industry all about it.

Alice’s Go Girl hair extension system allows those desiring long, cascading locks to avoid glue or wax when having lengths of hair attached to their own.

“With a lot of the systems you have to use a hot glue gun,” says Alice, whose hair extension wholesale business evolved from her wig shop of the same name at Sunshine Plaza.

“I knew it (the shop) needed something new and fresh and that’s why I thought about hair extensions. “Back four years ago, hair extensions weren’t a popular thing.

They weren’t around at all,” she says. Alice sells complete hair extension systems direct to hair salons, training each salon in how to use the system, which uses rings to attach the extensions to existing hair.

“You can re-use them, you can take them out for a couple of months and put them back in. If you want to keep the long hair look, every couple of months you get the rings moved up.

You could take them out and even give them to a girlfriend. They’re yours to own.

“We get a lot who’ll take out their extensions, go and get the short bob and then a month later they come in and get the extensions back in again.”

Expect to pay about $12 per extension – or $900-1200 for a full head. The extensions, which are available in 11 hair shades, will stay in place as long as you follow some simple maintenance rules.

“You pretty much treat them like your own hair, but with care,” says Alice.

“When you’re swimming, wear them in a plait. You don’t want to bleach them too much because they’ve been tampered with already.

“You’ve also got to brush your extensions with a proper brush – called a root brush. A normal brush will actually get caught on your extensions.

“You should wash and shampoo them with salon-recommended products. You don’t want to use cheap products.”

All this talk about adding hair to existing hair got me wondering… where does all the “extra” hair come from? Alice imports the hair for Go Girl extensions from India, China or Russia.

It’s 100 per cent “remy” human hair. Remy hair is hair that’s been cut from a person’s head, not human hair that’s been swept off the salon floor and tampered with to re-smooth cuticles.

“You can tell the difference. Remy hair is more silky and finer.” Finding just the right hair and the best system for extensions took Alice about six months of researching, sampling and testing.

“(During this time) I put a lot in my girlfriends’ hair,” Alice says with a laugh.

Now all her staff at Go Girl wear either extensions or human hair clip-in pieces, which she’s about to launch on to the wholesale market. “

The clip-in pieces are very popular for weddings and photo shoots because they can clip in and out.” And if you really want to stand out from the crowd, incorporate a coloured extension into your look.